Vellenaux eBook

ages, who kept their carriages and lived in good style,
whist playing dowagers, who kept their carriages but
hired job horses, when it was necessary to visit their
friends whose circumstances were more flourishing than
their own, and the families of country members who
usually remained in town daring the session of Parliament,
and often for a much longer period. It was in
this street and in this circle that the Cotterells
lived and moved. Mr. Cotterell, the father of
Kate—­the prettiest Kate in all that locality,
at least, so Tom Barton said, and he ought to know
for he had seen her often, and never failed to get
his face as close to hers as possible whenever a chance
presented itself for his so doing—­was a
retired stock broker who, having made a considerable
hit in a great speculation by which he realized a
handsome sum, prudently took the advice of his spouse
and let well enough alone, retired from business,
left their dusky residence in the city, and moved to
their present abode, No. 54 Upper Harley Street.
Mrs. Cotterell was the youngest sister of Mrs. Barton
of the Willows, in Devonshire, hence the relationship
between our friend, Tom Barton, and pretty cousin Kate,
the charm of whose gay and lively manners had made
quite an impression on the susceptible heart of cousin
Tom, which increased and strengthened during the frequent
visits of that young lady to her aunt’s in Devonshire.
Nor was it a one sided affair, for she had been captivated
by the handsome person and agreeable address of her
cousin, but being petit in stature, she was like most
little beauties, very arbitrary and capricious towards
her lover, yet, with all this, she was a girl of good,
sound sense, and knowing that her portion on the death
of her parents would be but small, would not consent
to entangle herself in the meshes of matrimony until
Tom had established himself in his profession, and
there was a fair prospect of their succeeding in life.

It will be remembered that Tom Barton left for London
about the same time that Arthur Carlton started for
India. He had been more fortunate than could
have been expected in the profession he had chosen,
for he had scarcely been three years turning over
musty deeds, copying legal documents and other drudgeries
appertaining to a lawyer’s office, when his
employer died, leaving him the business and recommending
him to the notice of his clients generally. Now,
although Tom’s chambers were situated in Lincoln’s
Inn Fields which everybody knows (who knows anything
of London) is a large, airy space, surrounded with
iron railings, wherein there are plenty of trees,
flowers, grasses, and gravel walks to stroll about
in, all of which could be seen from his chamber window.
But this was not sufficient for him. He wanted
something more suburban and evidently considered the
atmosphere north of Oxford street more conducive to
his health, or he would never have imposed upon himself
the task of walking from Lincoln’s Inn so far
westward up Harley Street. Yet, although the
air must have been more pure some half a mile further
on, he never by any chance, succeeded in getting beyond
No. 54.